GOEM "ABRI" (12K1015)

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INCURSION.ORG (CA)
Goem's seventh full-length release collects material recorded in Rotterdam, Montréal, Tokyo and Kyoto between 2000 and 2001, featuring eight tracks with a run time of just over 50 minutes. Although they probably need no introduction here (see our feature article and interview, Broken Music and Loop Tensions, published earlier this year), Goem consists of Roel Meelkop, Frans de Waard and Peter Duimelinks. In creating their "minimal pulse techno" (for lack of a better term), Meelkop has said that they "are always looking for this tension in the track; if the tension is not there, the track is nothing." This tension is created by combining a small set of short loops and minimal pulses, all of which are mixed live and with no subsequent editing. The basic material may seem simple, but the possibilities in the mix are endless, which might explain why each one of Goem's releases is as refreshing as the last. It recalls the idea that constraint is actually more liberating than free forms. Each track contains enough subtle changes and delicate touches (shifts in volume, eq, pitch, balance, etc.) to bring these minimal elements to new levels, implying that these are more than mere pulses, and hidden within them is an entire world of sound through their interaction with the body. It's the subtleties that makes this and all of Goem's work so rewarding, easily transcending the "microwave" or "clicks & cuts" conventions by a mile. Excellent work. [Richard di Santo]

VITAL WEEKLY (NL)
Imagine a pile of kids building blocks. You take one block and place it on top of another and repeat until you have no blocks left. The tower of blocks seems like it may topple over, but it remains steady. Slowly you take away the blocks one by one. Goem's music works in the same manner. Sounds are layered vertically in relentless pulses. This music doesn't move through time, it reinforces it. The vertical nature of GoemÌs music is what makes it so appealing. Listen to this at a loud volume and you'll find yourself tapping your foot and eventually jumping up and down. Great stuff. (JS)

THE WIRE (UK)
using laptop and multichannel sound card, Roel Meelkop, Frand De Waard and Peter Duimelinks were able to record Abri as they travelled from Rotterdam to Canada and Japan. The eight resulting tracks are graphically physical, consolidating their development of a potent kind of smothered and reduced Techno. There are strident pounding beats that hit like blunt trauma, but Techno formulas have been emptied out of pared back to bristling implications. Floor and walls start to pulsate, the bludgeoning locks in with the listener's pulse yet thin twittering or static crackle still hol the attention, as if the body's experience and the mind's focus have become strangely disconnected. (Julian Cowley)

XLR8R (US)
while microscopic minimalism is often associated with digital production, some of its finest practionres, including Goem and pan sonic, favor pure analogue sounds. goem's austere compositions, based on relatively simple structures, bear a passing resemblance to those of their finnish counterparts, but their sound is far less brittle. with even the most brutral tracks on abri, goem's regular, metronomic pulses have a soft, pliant quality to them. more akin to a heartbeat than a jackhammer. out of a basic foundation of pulses, pops, delicate static and cicada-like chirps, goem create compositions of incredible complexity. - susanna bolle